Finding Her
by keepyourchinup
Summary: It's been months since Bella broke Jake's heart, and his friends are tired of watching him struggle. When they take him on a weekend trip to Seattle, he'll encounter his true fate. But will he ever be able to get over Bella to chase after everything she isn't? Eclipse AU, OC. Please give it a read!
1. Chapter 1

It's been months, and I still can't forget her.

I can't think straight, I can't truly focus, I can't eat without some coaxing.

Only one day sticks out as different from the others: the day the wedding invitation arrived in the mail. My dad had knocked quietly on the door to my room before wheeling himself in and dropping it at the end of my bed. He left immediately, and it took me a few minutes to work up the motivation to pick up the thick, off-white envelope and tear it open.

I didn't go. I couldn't bring myself to see her with him, a ring on her finger and a smile on her face. I chose to remember her as mine, telling me that she did, in fact, love me. I didn't want my last memory of her to be her dressed up in something she clearly wouldn't have chosen for herself, make-up covering every inch of her skin, off to make the worst decision imaginable.

The day had come and gone along with the rest of the summer, albeit with a bit more pain than the rest, and school had started again. After things had cooled off, Sam had let up on the patrol shifts, so we all went back to the school on the res and pretended we were normal teenage kids who didn't have issues with the supernatural.

I gazed out through the tiny window over my bed, staring through the snowflakes that had just started falling and wondering if I would feel something when her heart stopped. Would it hurt? Would I even know? Surely I would feel something when she became one of them. But what if she already was?

I beat down the panic that rose up in my throat and forced my attention back to my homework. It didn't matter, she didn't matter.

Don't think.

Don't feel.

Just don't.

I finished off the math problems, and then pulled out an essay I had been putting off. Moving my hand to date the top of the paper, I stopped suddenly. What _was_ the date? I tried to remember what had been written on the blackboard of all of my teachers, but I couldn't recall anything about school today.

After a few moments, I reached over to the notes I had taken at some point this morning and was stunned by how much time had passed.

It was somehow already the 22nd of February.

A small wave of relief swept over me; I was getting good at this, at letting time pass uneventfully and without notice. I wasn't aging as I had yet to stop phasing, and the faster time passed the better. I pushed away the thoughts of this time last year, and felt the tiniest bit of relief again.

I was getting good at being numb.

Soon enough, the end of the week had arrived, leaving me face-to-face with a completely blank weekend, with nothing to distract me from _her._ I started to get nervous as the seconds ticked down to the last bell; sure, I was getting better at being numb, but the strategy wasn't perfect.

Just as I was beginning to consider calling up Quil and Embry just to have someone around that could fill up the silence, the guys themselves appeared behind me as I was unlocking the Rabbit.

"How's a weekend out of La Push, in the lovely city of Seattle sound to you?" offers Quil, putting on his best salesmen's voice.

I do my best to plaster a grin on my face before turning to face them.

"Sounds like an eight hour round trip?" I say, hoping it doesn't come out too strained. The idea is completely ridiculous; it's four hours one way, and it's already two in the afternoon.

"Well, I've got friend of my cousin who rents an apartment he says we can stay in for a night or two since he's out of town, and about $80 of gas money courtesy of…" Embry trails off, and I'm instantly suspicious.

"Courtesy of _who_, Embry." There something in my voice, and it takes me a second to recognize it as anger. I haven't felt genuinely angry in a while. I haven't felt anything in a while. The feeling is more intense than I remembered it, and it feels good somehow. Satisfying, in a strange way.

"Look, Jake, he was worried about you, he thinks you spend too much time in your room alone, which is true…" Embry's voice is serious as he speaks so quickly that his words start to flow into one another.

"Who?!" I ask, although I know who.

"Billy."

I run a hand through my hair, which I've kept cropped short ever since last summer, as guilt bubbles up in my stomach. My dad doesn't exactly have money to spare for things like these; I had intended to start taking in work on cars to earn some more cash, but I'd gotten sidetracked…and here I was thinking I'd convinced him that nothing was wrong with me.

"Look, dude, it's not a big deal. It'll be good for you. Maybe this is what you need." Quil's voice is, for once, not joking or teasing.

I finally take real a look at my pack brothers, guys who have been my best friends for as long as I can remember. They're both looking at me with faces etched with concern, and I realize that this has not just been hurting me. I have not been the only one in pain these past few months.

I have been hurting those closest to me, however unintentionally.

So I swallow the guilt and nod at them, causing them to high-five instantly and shove at each other in an effort reach the passenger seat first. I feel the first glimmer of hope that's flickered for a while, and it seems that there might be a light at the end of the tunnel after all.

Quil wins the battle for 'shot gun,' and Embry settles for sitting with his head poked between the two front seats. He leans forward every couple of minutes to adjust the radio while Quil traces our progress on a map that he'd pulled from the glove compartment.

They chatter endlessly and it's an easy distraction for me. After a while I even begin to input something here and there, and each time I do, they come to a dead stop to listen, reminding me again of how selfish I'd been lately.

The road, the map, the radio, and the guys all demand my attention, forcing me to focus. Everything seems to be louder, more vibrant, more intense than I had thought. It's like I'd been in a cloud for months, and now that I wasn't spaced out, it was like I was hearing and seeing it all for the first time.

And so I continued to put miles between me and the source of my misery.

**A/N: I'm going to introduce my original character during the next chapter. I hope you take the time to review, they make my day! : )**


	2. Chapter 2

We hit a surprisingly small amount of traffic on the way, and by 6:30 we're on the outskirts of the city. Embry fishes a tiny slip of paper out of his pocket; on it is the address for this apartment. We end up having to stop for directions three separate times since Quil isn't exactly the best navigator in the world.

At last we pull up, and I remember the miniature detail that we don't have any clothes with us. No toothbrushes, nothing. When I confront Embry with this fact, he waves me off.

"Billy packed up a bunch of stuff; it's in the back of the car."

Hm. They must have been planning this for a few days, at least. I clearly wasn't paying enough attention. But that was my way of getting by. The easiest thing to do was to not feel anything at all. Yet here I was, letting hope take me all the way here. This had been a bad idea. Why was I even here, anyways? To get my mind off things? This stupid trip was only making me think more about what I had been doing lately, which is a dangerous path to take.

"Jake! You coming, or what?" yells Quil, who is already at the front doors of the apartment building, Embry right behind him. They've already taken the bags, and it looks like I have no other choice but to follow them.

….

The apartment was a nice place, with modern furniture and all white walls. Quil and Embry's comments of appraisal were virtually the only sounds in the surprisingly quiet rooms.

When they've done their exploring, they return to the kitchen and sit down to make a game plan for the night.

After arguing for a few minutes, they settle on some sort of club a few blocks away that Embry says his cousin always talks about. Embry goes off to get changed, apparently hoping to pick up some girls, while Quil walks into the living room to call and check up on Claire, leaving me alone at the table with the guilt of knowing that I'm keeping Quil away from her.

I don't know what suddenly brought this all on, why Billy wanted so badly for me to go someplace else for a while. It's not like I've changed in the past few weeks. I was doing the same things I've been doing since September: school, patrol, homework, sleep. Nothing more, nothing less.

I shouldn't have agreed to go with them. I was doing okay. Better, even, than last September. I had learned to put her out of my mind, at least for short amounts of time.

I couldn't avoid her at night though. I never could avoid her then.

She was in every last one of my dreams, and every dream was a spin-off of the same plot: at first, I felt incredible amounts of relief as I saw her as a human, waiting for me at the edge of the trees that surround the cliff she jumped off. But every time I took a step towards her, she would move away, shaking her head, her features slowly becoming that of a bloodsucker.

I could never reach her fast enough, before she became a living corpse.

It was nauseating.

I'd started avoiding sleep because of it, and soon enough I couldn't sleep even when I tried to.

But I could deal with. I had been dealing with it. I'd found some sleeping pills at a store in Forks a few months ago, trying to put myself into a drug induced state of unconsciousness, at least for a little while, but my damn wolf body had burned through them too fast. I hadn't felt any sort of tiredness at all.

So I learned to function on a few hours of sleep each night. I learned to keep myself occupied until around 3 in the morning, when sleep would find me.

After a while, the dream had become like an old friend. I greeted it with acceptance, though it still had me waking up in a cold sweat every morning.

Regardless of whether or not I'd done something to alert them, the guys had returned to the kitchen, pulling me away from that train of thought.

"How exactly do you plan on getting us into this club?" I questioned the two of them, and they rolled their eyes immediately.

"Well, not only do we look like we're 25, but I have also very graciously provided us with these I.D.s." explains Quil, pulling out the little pieces of plastic with a great deal of extravagance. I roll my eyes and take them from him. I'm surprised by how real they look.

"Plus, we only need to be 18 to get in there, which two of out of the three of us are," says Embry, before they both pointedly look at me and a small laugh escapes me. The feeling is strange and unfamiliar, but before I can remember that things like these are only going to hurt me later, the guys are laughing with me, though probably a bit too hard for such a small joke. The fact that I'm the baby of the three of us has never been this hilarious before.

But something tells me that maybe it's not really the joke making them happy.

"Anyways, this place is apparently pretty easy to get into, so don't worry about it." Quil calls out, his voice already drifting away down the hall towards the front door.

…..

The place does turn out to be very easy to get in to, and the bored looking guy at the door just waves us in. The air's hazy in the huge place, and there's some crappy techno music thumping in the background. It's practically straight out of a movie.

"This is ridiculous!" I'm forced to yell at them to be heard.

They both just shrug at me, leading us over to a tiny table in the corner. The crowd parts for us and we earn ourselves plenty of skeptical glances. The two of them get checked out by more than a few girls on our way, and I roll my eyes.

We push our way into the chairs, and a couple of girls descend on the table surprisingly quickly. So _that's_ why they brought me here. They're trying to find me someone else. I should've seen it hours ago. How could I have been so _stupid?_

I'm shoving away from the table, a surge of anger startling me, when the crowd parts just the right way. Or just the wrong way. Because right then, I see a girl, and not just any girl. It's _the_ girl.

She's standing across the room, leaning against the wall and looking uncomfortable. My whole world narrows down to her, shifts to put her at the very top of my priorities. The air is suddenly knocked out of my lungs, and I can feel Quil and Embry tugging on my arms, but they seem so far away.

"Shit, dude, shit!" hisses Quil, running a hand through his hair.

I shrug them off and move towards her, through the crowd, trying to reach her. I don't have a clue as to what I'll say when I get there, but this is something I have to do. I have to get there; it's like my life depends on it.

I push through the very edge of the crowd, and the space she was standing is empty.

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	3. Chapter 3

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I whirled around, suddenly wanting to scream. Where was she? She was standing right there!

Quil and Embry caught up to me right then, apparently having appeased a few people that I had pushed by on the way here. But I didn't care about any of that.

"Jake! Did you just…" trails off Embry, and I realize what had just happened. I had been so caught up in the motions, in getting there, that the weight of what had just occurred had just reached me.

"I don't know…" I say, because how can that possibly be true? I don't know this girl! I love…_Bella._ But suddenly, for the first time, those words fail to ring completely true. Not that they sound wrong, but more that they sound…half right. Yeah, they sound half right.

"Well I mean you should know whether you imprinted or not," points out Quil, "though I'd say that your little scene was enough to prove that you did."

I wave him off. Whether I did or I didn't, the desire to find the girl overrode the desire to reason through the actions of the last two minutes. I had seen her for only a moment, yet her face seemed etched across my vision: light red hair, sharp blue eyes, tan skin, a spread of tiny freckles all around her face. She was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen, except, of course for…

The thought cut off there. It felt like I had been torn, some larger part of me trying to fight the smaller part that had caused me pain for such a long time.

Right. Bigger problem. Where did she _go_?

I glance around the space, my eyes falling on a narrow back door. I shoot towards it, and finding it unlocked, move through it with the guys right behind me.

I find myself out in an alley which leads out to a slightly quieter street than the one that brought us to the front door of the building.

"So what now?" pipes up Embry, and I hate that I don't have an answer for him.

"Well, if this girl is the one, he should feel some sort of pull towards her," offers up Quil, since he's the only one with an imprint as of right now. Well, that may no longer be true.

Regardless, I stop and take a deep breath. And then I feel it. Just a little tug to the left, nothing more. So I turn in that direction and start picking my way through the small flow of people, grateful that almost all of them part for me.

And then I see her.

She's facing away, walking fast, a tan jacket pull up around her neck. I catch up to her within a moment of seeing her, and I'm suddenly unsure of what to do.

"Hey!" I call out, causing her to pause for a split second.

"Excuse me?" I ask, because it's the only thing I can think of.

She turns towards me, a bewildered expression on her face, and it feels like the air has been knocked out of me again. I blink and take a small step back, trying to clear my head.

"Can I help you?" her voice is quiet and obviously nervous.

"I just…I saw you back there and…I thought you might,"

"Look," she practically hisses, her voice low, "Stay away from me. I will scream if you take another step towards me, I won't even think twice about. So you and your friends need to back off."

I blink stupidly at her, dumbfounded. What is going on? But then I see it: a tiny pop-open knife in her right hand, which is shaking hard. The puzzle pieces click together easily for me, and I realize how much of a threat she sees me, Quil, and Embry as. Remorse hits me hard for what I did, thought I didn't know what else to do.

"Hey, I didn't mean to scare you. I just saw you and thought you looked…" I trail off, struggling for the right words, "like the kind of girl I'd like to get to know. I was just going to ask you out."

Her eyebrows knit together in confusion, and I'm fascinated by the look in her eyes. Hell, I'm fascinated by this girl in general.

"So I'm Jacob," I say, sticking out my hand and feeling like a complete idiot.

"Charlotte," she mutters, her voice still wary. She takes my hand, and I wonder if she can feel the electricity that flies up my arm at her touch. But she drops it just as quickly, and I step back.

"Charlotte," I say to myself, enjoying the sound of it. But she raises an eyebrow at me, so I stop.

"So how 'bout it? Would you mind getting coffee with me tomorrow?" What am I _saying?_ I don't even drink coffee! But I can't take my words back now, so I leave them hanging in the air between us.

She adjusts the strap of the brown purse I hadn't noticed she'd had on her shoulder, before giving me a curt nod.

"Caffe Fiore?" she offers, and I nod, though I have no clue what she's talking about. What is _wrong _with me right now?

"I'll meet you there at 3?" I respond, and she nods, leaving an awkward silence.

"Right, so I'll see you then." I turn away from her with those last words, though it takes everything I have to do so. I don't want to leave her. But just as I'm forcing myself away, I catch one small smile cross her face, and suddenly I can't wipe the grin off mine.

…

Once she's gone down the street, I realize that Quil and Embry had apparently made themselves scarce during that terribly awkward conversation. I'm instantly grateful; they never would have let me live that one down.

So I make my way back towards the apartment, the events of the night finally catching up to me. I ran a hand through my hair, suddenly unable to shake the nagging feeling that I had betrayed Bella. Strange, I'd never really been able to use her name before without being rushed with so many emotions that I'd nearly phase. Yet here I was.

The pain was still there, there was still a throbbing hole in my chest and panic that rushes up into my throat every time I thought of her future plans. But it was duller, somehow.

Either way, I hadn't betrayed her….right? I didn't have a choice in the matter anyways. She had left _me._ She had chosen the bloodsucker; she'd made that much painfully clear. I didn't have to keep pining after her…right?

Deciding that I wasn't ready to face the guys yet, I took a sudden turn away from the apartment building, figuring I could afford another block of walking. I wanted to jump and yell and cry all at once, as cliché as it seemed.

This girl…Charlotte, she was incredible. I didn't even know her at all, but I could just tell. She was fierce, clearly. I wondered how badly I had scared her back there, and a pool of guilt formed in my stomach once again.

What I had done was downright creepy; there was no way around that. I had chased her down a city street late at night, yelling after her, with two other guys just behind me. How much worse could it get?

But she had agreed to see me tomorrow, so I couldn't feel too awful about it.

Wasn't she supposed to feel something too, though? I'd never heard of a member of the pack having to pursue their imprint; they had always seemed to fall simultaneously. But she had to have felt something too; I had seen it when we'd locked eyes across the room.

Just a flash in her eyes, but it was something.

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	4. Chapter 4

**Thanks to the guest reviewer who made my entire week! :D Hope you enjoy this chapter!**

By the time I get back I'm half expecting Quil and Embry to have gone to bed, but naturally they're laughing the moment I walk in the door. So they hadn't made themselves _too_ scarce then.

"I thought she…was going….to stab you!" blurts out Embry between spurts of apparently uncontrollable laughter.

"Oh yes, and that's just so hilarious!" My voice is harsher than I intended, though both of them continue on with the giggling.

"Dude, come on! That _is_ hilarious!" prods Quil, and I suddenly can't help but laugh along with him as the ridiculousness of the whole scene dawns on me.

"Well, Quil," chuckles Embry, "he did chase her down a city street at night, flanked by two very buff guys, if I do say so myself." This brings on a whole new round of laughter.

For just a moment I pause and look around that them, at my two best friends. It's then that I realize just how nice it feels to laugh at them, to feel my stomach hurt afterwards. That maybe I'd taken life too seriously up until this point; maybe, just maybe, life was actually all about things like these.

_Woah, where'd philosophical me come from?_ I shake my head briefly before refocusing on Quil and Embry, who have sobered up a bit.

"So," says Embry, propping his head up on his hands like some sort of cliché school girl, "what's she like?"

"Well apparently you _did_ hear the entire conversation so…"

"No, no, neither of us could have gathered anything from _that_ conversation," snickers Quil, "but what did you think she was like?"

I pause for a moment, wondering if I should be truthful and serious or attempt to keep the joking atmosphere alive. I decide to go with the former.

"She's…incredible. She's apparently pretty fierce, and clearly brave. She seems highly intelligent…but like she doesn't want to trust anyone."

Where did all that come from? Could I really have gathered that all from a two minute conversation?

When I bring this up to Quil, he rolls his eyes.

"She's your imprint. You can tell things about her that we can't. You'll figure it out."

I nod thoughtfully at this, pondering whether or not it's fair that I get to know her without even _knowing_ her. But it's not as if I had a choice in the matter; it had just come to me.

The both of them suddenly start to fake sleepiness for whatever reason, so I let them go off to their rooms, leaving me at the kitchen table once again.

This whole imprinting bit had once been my worst nightmare. I thought it would feel awful; that caring about anyone but Bella would feel awful. But it seems that I had been wrong; this feels almost freeing, though I'm tied to yet another girl who may or may not want me.

I sigh, putting my head in my hands. What if she doesn't want anything to do with me? What will I do then? Could that even happen?

When will things in my life finally start to work out—and not just for a little while?

I sit there for another half hour, wondering where Charlotte is. I hope she's safe…I'd kill anyone that touched her. I should have trailed behind her on the walk home…the streets are dangerous, and a guy with different intentions than mine could have run after her.

Suddenly I want to vomit and phase at the same time. The heat licks up my spine, and I clench my teeth together, trying to fight it. I've got to go find her, to make sure she's safe.

Just as I turn the door knob, Embry calls out from the other room, apparently having heard me moving around.

"I wouldn't go and find her if I were you."

I grumble at him, frustrated that he doesn't understand. "And why not?"

"Look, you already freaked her out once tonight. You're lucky she agreed to see you again. Plus, a girl like that? She was carrying a pocket knife for Christ's sake. She can take care of herself."

I can hear Quil mumble, agreeing with Embry's logic. As much as I can't stand the thought of it, he's right. But I've got a little research to do.

After some searching, I at last find a phone book for businesses. It takes me a few minutes, but I'm able to find a coffee shop name Caffe Fiore, which boasts itself as the best coffee shop in Seattle. No wonder she wanted to go there. I scribble down the address on a piece of scrap paper, reminding myself to figure out where the street is in the morning.

Now that my research is done, I decide that it's time to head off to bed, though I'm well aware I won't be sleeping anyways.

After a few minutes of laying there in the dark on the couch, I swear under my breath. How could I have been so _stupid?_

"What now?" sighs Quil, who was clearly half asleep but could hear me from the other room.

"What if she doesn't show up tomorrow? I don't even have any way to contact her!"

"Oh, you worry too much." And just like that, both of them were sound asleep.

…

Just as expected, I spent the entire night awake, staring at the ceiling, two sets of eyes seared into my mind: Charlotte's clear blue eyes, and Bella's wide brown ones.

As I watched the sun come up over the city sky line, something that I am not at all used to, I realized that I might need that coffee after all.

After Embry and Quil have gotten up and eaten some cereal for breakfast, I start to feel increasingly nervous. What if she doesn't show up?

Time begins to pass in strange lulls; at some points the clock moves too fast as I try and think of what on earth I'm going to say to her, and at other points it won't seem to move fast enough. I spend some time finding the street that the coffee shop is on, and planning the route I'll take there.

Quil and Embry sleep through part of the day, and make plans to explore the city all afternoon. They take the liberty to laugh at me some more as I pace around the apartment, but for some reason this doesn't bother me nearly as much as it might under other circumstances. I start to regret not bringing some nicer clothes, but not only do I not have any in general, but I also didn't exactly pack my own bag.

Just as I'm getting ready to walk out the door so I could arrive early, armed with some money I earned fixing some guy's car a couple months ago (the only job I'd taken on ), I hear Embry on the phone with someone…my dad, I realize. Curious, I wait there to listen.

"Yeah, it finally happened." Embry's words are hushed, but he ought to know that I could still hear him.

I can also hear Billy's huge sigh of relief on the other end.

"So what's she like?" he asks, and I can hear the hope in his voice.

"Well…that's a long story."

My face burns with embarrassment as Embry recounts the story to him, barely able to restrain his laughter. My father, however, makes no effort to do so, and I can hear his booming laugh through the phone's speaker.

"Well, I hope this works out for him. I really do." Billy is serious now, and the guilt for my past actions and depression reappears in my stomach.

But the anxiety over being late overrides the guilt, so I head out the door.

….

I manage to get there 10 minutes early, despite the delay. I sit at a little corner table, unable to stop the tapping of my foot out of nervousness, and wait for her to arrive. The cashier and the barista both shoot me looks as I had yet to buy anything. But something about my appearance makes them stop and turn back to what they were doing.

Being far more than 6 feet tall has its advantages.

Two minutes after she was supposed to get here, I start to get nervous. What if she really doesn't show? She has no reason to; I had been a bit of a creep, plus she has no idea who I am. I slap myself mentally. It's been _two minutes._ The discrepancy could have been due to something as trivial as my watch being off. Breathe.

True to her word, she comes in the door, wearing a black jacket over some jeans and a pair of tall boots. She glances around, the expression on her face unreadable, before her eyes fall on me. I have to remember to pick up my jaw before she sees it, but she looks wonderful. I think I'm successful, but the movement that twitches across her lips makes me doubt myself.

"Hey, Charlotte," I say as she approaches, uncharacteristically bumping into both my chair and the table as I stand up.

"Hey…Jacob." She smiles before putting her bag on the seat across from me.

"You can call me Jake…if you want." I'm stumbling and awkward but grateful as she gives me a small smile and nod.

"You want to get something to drink?" she offers, nodding towards the counter. She heads off towards it without waiting for my answer, and I smile to myself before going after her.

She puts her order in with the guy at the counter, who is clearly checking her out. Jealously bubbles up, and the heat that radiates from my body is stronger than I expected.

_Geez, Jake, get a hold of yourself. It's just some random guy, calm down. You could hurt her._ I remind myself, and force myself to turn my attention back to her.

I watch for a half second as she goes to pull out some money from her pocket, but put a hand on her arm to stop her just in time. She looks at me, pulling her arm away almost as if it was an unconscious movement. I cringe internally.

"I got it," I tell her, but she shakes her head immediately.

"No, no, I hate when other people pay for me."

"But I thought this was a…date…" I trail off, feeling even more like an idiot.

"Well, yeah, but still. Let it go, please."

It seems as if I can't tell her no, so I shove down the gentleman in me that screaming its head off, and allow her to pay for her own drink.

When the annoying pig at the counter turns to me, I pause for a split second before blurting out, "I'll have whatever she's having."

He nods and I hand him the money. Before I know it, the drink is in my hand and I'm following her back to the table, trying to figure out how to make conversation.

She sits down and looks right at me, forcing me to look away so I can focus. Damn, you could you get lost in eyes like those. But I know that if I do so, I'll become too intense, and the last thing I want right now is to scare her away.

"So where do you go to school?" I ask, hoping this path of conversation will last long enough for me to think of something else.

"Seattle Pacific University, you?" I cringe a bit, because that means she's at least a year older than I am, since I'll graduate high school in a few months.

"I go to school on the reservation in La Push since I'm Quileute. It's a little ways away from here."

She nods, raising her eyebrows. She looks interested, at least, so I guess that's a good sign.

"That's actually really cool. Are you a senior there?" Her voice at the end of her question sounds a little worried, and I realize that the age difference might bother her.

But I nod at her, knowing somehow that it's not worth it to lie. She would have to find out sooner or later, and part of me feels like those blue eyes might see right through me. There's something truthful about them, or at least something that seeks the truth.

"I should be a senior, actually," she says, but then looks down, an almost surprised look on her face. As if she's surprised she's shared this with me.

_Woah, so that's what Quil meant about knowing things about her._

"And you're not because…?" I ask, hoping the question doesn't come out sounding rude.

"I graduated high school a year early. Plus I was young for my grade so you're probably actually older than I am."

Now it's my turn to raise my eyebrows. Well, it looks like my prediction of her being intelligent was correct.

"So you're from around here then?"

"No…not exactly. Well, not at all. I'm from the East coast."

Wow, now _that_ I was not expecting.

"That's quite a ways away," I say, feeling ridiculous for saying I live a little ways away, "where on the East coast?"

"New England, Connecticut to be specific. Though it's all the same in New England."

"So is that why you left?" Going to school across the country when you're already a year younger than your classmates? There had to have been a serious reason behind that one.

"Well…yeah, that's why I left." Something in her voice tells me that there's a little more than just that, but I decide to leave it alone.

For now, anyways.

**Any reviews would be greatly appreciated! The rest of their date will come with the next chapter; it was getting a bit too long.**

**Also: I realize that Jake likely would have been a junior around this time, though I haven't been able to make sure of that. Regardless, I had to change the timeline a bit to fit the story. Sorry!**


	5. Chapter 5

We sit there and talk for hours; two, to be exact.

I tell her about what living on the reservation is like and about my family, and she tells me about college. Here and there she says little things about what life is like all the way across the country, but for the most part the topic is avoided entirely.

I can't seem to get enough of her, how her eyes light up and darken so easily, how she twirls one strand of light red hair around her finger as she talks, how she bites her lip and looks away when I become just a tad too intense while looking at her.

She drains her drink fairly quickly, and I soon find out that it's coffee with just a hint of milk, nothing more. It's bitter and to me, it tastes like mud, but I force myself to sip on it from time to time. I'm trying to impress her in any way possible, though I know that it's stupid.

In my head, I compile a list of things I now know about her as she talks: she's the youngest of 5 kids, she loves to run longer distances and she's at the gym constantly (which explains the athletic build), she's a psychology major with a minor in Russian (I make a mental note to find out more about that bizarre combination), and she loves to read, but she's not crazy about too many of the 'classics.'

Those are just major things; there are so many more little things that are burned into my mind. The light blue of her eyes, the way she laughs and smiles so easily, all of it. I find that I want to keep talking to her, perhaps forever, and find out every single tiny detail about her. She's endlessly fascinating, and I want to know everything.

Finally, I realize that a great deal of time has passed, though it certainly doesn't feel like it. I look up at the clock at the same moment that she looks down at her watch, and we both smile at the similarity for a moment.

"Would you like to go for a walk?" she offers almost hesitantly, and I feel my own face light up. I don't want my time with her to end, and this seems like the perfect opportunity to talk to her some more.

A few minutes later, we're walking slowly down the sidewalk, with me itching to take her hand in mine.

"So who are your friends back home?" she wonders, glancing up at me and making me blank for a moment, unable to think of anything to say. The confusion in her eyes, however, slaps me into answering.

"I've got a couple good friends…Quil and Embry are here in the city with me, and they've been my best friends since forever."

"Any change I'd get to meet them? Or did I sort of already?" her voice is mischievous and it sounds as if she's holding back a laugh. I'm grateful that she seemed to have forgiven me for chasing after her.

"Well yeah..." I trail off, rubbing the back of my neck and trying to think of a way to change the subject away from my awkward scene last night. "How about you?"

"I've only got a few _actual_ friends from college, and I'll be renting an apartment here in the summer with my friend Kirsten since I'm doing some temp work in the city."

"Oh, that's cool!" I say, relieved that she won't be hundreds upon hundreds of miles away when classes end in May. "But what about back on the East Coast?"

She cringes for just a moment before answering.

"My best friend from high school was Piper, she was two years older than me, but we ended up graduating just a year apart because I got out early. We ran together and were basically inseparable. She's at school in Maine right now." Her voice is wistful by the end, and I can easily tell that she misses this girl.

"What is she like?" I wonder, hoping she won't get too sad.

"She's sweet, but she's got this really fierce attitude about her. She's also really, really loyal; like anyone who messed with her friends and family were _toast_, which is pretty ridiculous considering she is my height and weighs like 15 pounds less." She trails off, chuckling to herself, and I can easily picture the two of them together in my mind, piecing together an image of this Piper based on what I now know of her personality.

"Sounds like quite the friend," I grin at her, happy that she's shared this with me.

"Oh, she was." She doesn't return my smile—she doesn't even meet my eyes.

"Was?" I prod, hoping that this isn't some sort of sore point with her.

"Well, I mean _is._ I just haven't seen her in…months. Since Christmas, anyways. I worry that we won't be as good of friends when I go back for a few weeks before I start my internship thing, which is ridiculous, because we've been best friends for the past four years. But I still worry that none of that will matter, ya know?" She trails off again, sighing.

"I'm sure she'll still be your friend," I say quietly, wishing there was some sort of comfort I could offer her. She has this sad look in her eyes, not like she's going to start crying, but like she's a thousand miles away from here.

"Yeah, I guess. Anyways, I'm curious: what were the circumstances that brought a guy like you all the way to Seattle?" And just like that, the sadness is gone from her face, but certainly not her eyes. She's trying bravely to change the subject, anyone could see that. So I bite, trying to take her mind off her worries about her friend.

"Quil and Embry made me come here," I start, then hesitate. Do I tell her about my depression, about _Bella?_ No, I don't want to scare her away. It can wait.

"And they did this because….?"

"I was a little…down, I guess you could say. They wanted to distract me, I suppose." There, perfect. Telling her just enough to avoid lying to her about my real reason for being hours from home.

"You were depressed." Her assumption is short, easy. I stop walking, unable to think of anything to say. I stare at her for a few minutes before she speaks again.

"Sorry, I shouldn't have said it like that. But you had all the signs of it in your face when I first saw you last night." She pauses for a moment before whispering the last few words, almost to herself. "Signs I once saw in myself."

I still can't think of anything to say. The thought alone of this beautiful girl ever being sad over _anything_ knocks the air out of my lungs, causes the wolf in me to howl in pain. A girl like her never deserved anything like that.

"Look, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said anything. I…I need to go." She whirls around, walking so quickly she looks like she's about to break into a run. My brain catches up a few moments later, and I jog after her.

"Hey, you didn't say anything wrong. Just caught me by surprise, that's all." My hand has involuntarily wrapped around hers and a feeling of…safety washes over me. Much to more of my surprise, she doesn't pull away.

"It's not exactly an easy subject for most people, I understand that. Everyone's got a back story they're not quite willing to share."

"Yeah. I don't think I'm quite ready for that. It just…it hurts, you know?" She's the first person I've actually talked to about any of this, and it's a huge relief to get it off my chest. And it's true: I'm not ready to talk about any of it in depth.

"Of course. Just for future reference though, I'm a pretty great listener." She smiles up at me, the mood immediately lightened. My heart pounds and I force my gaze away. Can't get too intense.

And something about the mention of the future, about an indirect promise, has me flying.

**Reviews are greatly appreciated!**


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